Titanic Collapsible Lifeboat D

Titanic collapsible lifeboat D, the ninth and last boat to be lowered from the port side. Second Officer Lightoller had managed to fit the collapsible boat into the now-empty davits of boat 1. He tried to find women to fill it with, but had trouble in finding any. Finally, he said, he managed to fill the boat with 15-20 people, ''all it would hold.'' Mrs. Harris, a first class passenger, thought there were 19 people in it, others estimated up to 30 and seaman Lucas thought there were 44 in it. Estimates vary quite a bit, thus. There is a photograph of the boat approaching the Carpathia, and there are about 30 people visible; including about ten received from boat 14 earlier in the night and also Mr. Björnström-Steffansson and Mr. Woolner, who jumped into the boat from a lower deck as well as Frederick Hoyt, who had escorted his wife to the craft and then calculated where the boat would row and thought that if he jumped and swam in that direction, they would pick him up. He was right. They did pick him up; the only person rescued from the water by the last boat which rowed away from the ship.

''Mrs. Hoyt gave a concise account of the tragedy to her father. She did not leave her husband's side until the last boat was being lowered and then she was torn from him and thrown into a boat. Mr. Hoyt leaped into the water and seized a piece of wreckage. He was hauled into one of the lifeboats that returned when the Titanic went down. Mrs. Hoyt happened to be in this boat, but she did not know her husband was saved until they got aboard the Carpathia...'' (The Sun, April 23, 1912)

There were probably about 20 or 22 (not quite half-filled) in it when he had been picked up. It is said that the two Navratil children were in this boat.